Short films that screen at Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival often show up as a Best Short Film nominee on Oscar night. And remember, the winner of the Spa Center Best Short Documentary Award becomes an Oscar qualifying film. So don't miss your chance to say on Oscar night, "I saw that at Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival!".

9:55 AM - FIELD OF VISION: STORIES OF CURRENT SOCIAL/POLITICAL ISSUES

Produced by the new documentary film unit of the online journalism publication, The Intercept.

5 Short Films - 105 minutes

10 AM - RISKY BUSINESS: STORIES OF ENTREPRENEURS, RISKS AND REWARDS

4 Short Films - 90 minutes

12 PM - LIVING ON THE EDGE

5 Short Films - 105 minutes

1:30 PM - INSTRUMENT OF CHANGE: STORIES OF HARMONY AND DISCORD

4 Short Films - 102 minutes

FEATURES

11:50 AM - LOST AND BEAUTIFUL

Italian director Pietro Marcello’s Lost and Beautiful is a jaw-dropping, Pasolini-influenced melding of Campanian myth with the true story of Tommaso Cestrone, aka the “Angel of Carditello,” the caretaker of an abandoned palace who succumbed to a heart attack during Marcello’s filming. Lost and Beautiful is also an intoxicating work of timeless magical realism – and a fine example of the exhilarating possibilities within today’s realm of cinematic nonfiction. -- LW

3:30 PM - BROTHERS

Markus and Lukas are brothers, and the sons of the Norwegian filmmaker Aslaug Holm, who over the course of more than eight years has filmed their childhood and youth. Holm’s astute eye manages to reveal the tiny details that sometimes make way for big changes in the brothers’ relationship. Holm's beautiful film views the boys' dreams and expectations with both the tenderness of youth and directness of the adult eye, and follows the brothers straight into the wildness of teenage life.

5:30 PM - JERRY LEWIS: THE MAN BEHIND THE CLOWN

From his early days, Jerry Lewis – in the line of Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel – had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such classics as The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty Professor. Lewis broke boundaries with his technical innovations, unique voice and keen visual eye. American critics and the cultural elite, however, tended to view Lewis as nothing more than a clown, while the French recognized him as a true auteur, giving rise to questions that have perplexed American pop culture for over 50 years: Why do Europeans love Jerry Lewis? Is he just a brash, anything-for-yuk buffoon? Or is he a creative genius? Who is the man behind the clown?

6:30 PM - LOOKING FOR EXITS

Wingsuit base jumping is an extreme sport in which a pilot jumps from high peaks often above cloud level, navigating the way back to earth through forests and past cliff faces at speeds up to 150 mph. Looking for Exits – Conversations with a Wingsuit Artist combines stunning photography with a podcast-inspired conversation with Ellen Brennan who is known within the wingsuit-community as a true artist. She's the fastest flying woman in the world, residing amongst the mountains in Chamonix Mont-Blanc, she spends her days and sometimes nights looking for suitable cliffs (exits) from which she can soar.

Preceded by short documentary Shift

6:45 pm - DO NOT RESIST

*Part of Being Human category

D: Craig Atkinson | USA | 75 min | ARKANSAS PREMIERE

Starting on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown, Do Not Resist offers a stunning look at the current state of policing in America and a glimpse into the future. The film puts viewers in the center of the action – from a ride-along with a South Carolina SWAT team and inside a police training seminar teaching the importance of “righteous violence” to the floor of a congressional hearing on the proliferation of military equipment in small-town police departments – before exploring where controversial new technologies including predictive policing algorithms could lead us next.

8:00 PM - I AM THE BLUES

*Part of Stories Of The South category

D: Daniel Cross | USA/Canada | 106 min | ARKANSAS PREMIERE

I Am the Blues provides a musical journey through the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou, the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta and moonshine soaked BBQs in the North Mississippi Hill Country, visiting some of the last original blues devils, many in their 80's, still living in the deep south, working without management and touring the Chitlin' Circuit. Let Bobby Rush, Barbara Lynn, Henry Gray, Carol Fran, Lazy Lester, Bilbo Walker, RL Boyce, Jimmy 'Duck' Holmes, Lil Buck Sinegal, LC Ulmer and their friends awaken the blues in all of us.

Filmmaker in attendance

8:10 PM - SPANDEX SAPIENS

*Part of Doc/Fiction category

D: Oskari Pastila | Finland | 87 min | Finnish, Japanese and English with English Subtitles | NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Oskari Pastila’s wrestling doc Spandex Sapiens is an odd cinematic portrait of an even odder man (it doesn’t get much weirder than a fantasy sequence supermarket-to-wrestling ring-to-Ikea parking lot showdown set to a cover of Alphaville’s Big in Japan). The film follows Michael “Starbuck” Majalahti, a Canadian-Finnish wrestler/hard rock singer/sometime actor who heads up Fight Club Finland. (And yes, he is big in Japan.) He’s also the son of a preacher – whose main adversary in the ring is Jessica Love, a standout transgender woman with the killer looks and attitude to match her formidable skills. Jessica also happens to be a young rising star, while the nearly 40-year-old Starbuck is in physical decline. -- LW

Filmmaker in attendance

8:30 PM - MOUNTAINSIDE AFTER PARTY AT ROLANDO’S

A patio carved into the Ouachita Mountains is the perfect spot to celebrate our festival’s 25th year. Sample foods of Latin America in a setting of southern hospitality. Visit with filmmakers and friends under lighted trees while Adam Faucett, known for his powerful, almost operatic voice and intricate finger picking performs on the patio.

Sponsored by Rolando's Nuevo Latino Restaurante

Wine, spirits and appetizers available to All Access Passholders, Filmmakers, & Sponsors. Cash bar margaritas. Cash bar and concert available to the public.

THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY HOT SPRINGS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL IS PRESENTED BY

Recipients of the Spa City Award for Best Documentary Short will qualify for consideration in theDocumentary Short Subject category of the Annual Academy Awards® without the standard theatrical run,provided the film otherwise complies with the Academy rules.